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The Fires of Pompeii (TV story)
The Fires of Pompeii 'is the second episode of the fourth series of ''Doctor Who. It was written by James Moran, directed by Colin Teague and featured David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble. Overview To be added Synopsis The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Donna to Rome, or so they think. Until they discover a single mountain, rather than seven hills. And that single mountain bellows smoke from the top, accompanied by tremors all across the town. They've arrived in Pompeii, just before Volcano Day. The Doctor wants to find the TARDIS and leave but Donna wishes to stay and help evacuate, all the while 80-foot magma creatures plot to claim the Earth as a new homeworld beneath Vesuvius. With only a day to spare, the Doctor has to decide whether to leave and preserve history or stay and save the world; a decision with a momentous cost either way... Plot The Doctor walks Donna out of the TARDIS onto the busy streets of Ancient Rome. Donna is in awe of all the people around her but the Doctor is confused by various missing things. Rounding a corner, Donna points out that there’s only one mountain over the town instead of seven. Suddenly an earthquake rocks the town and smoke starts rising from the top. The Doctor realises that they’ve not arrived in Rome; they’ve landed in Pompeii on the eve of Volcano day. A Sister of the Sybilline who had overheard the entire discussion returns to the temple and warns Sister Spurrina and the High Priestess of the travellers’ arrival. They run back to where they landed only to find the TARDIS is gone. They ask a nearby stallholder who tells them he sold it because it was with his stock. At a nearby villa, the man who purchased the TARDIS, Lobus Caecilius, brings it home and displays it as modern art. His wife Metella is unimpressed but Caecilius hopes it’ll impress their forthcoming guest, city auger Lucius Petrus Dextrus as well as better aid their daughter Evelina in her ascension to the Sisterhood of Sybiline. Despite her reservations, Evelina accomplices her mother to a hypocaust over hot springs from Vesuvius to practice consume the vapours and practice her soothsaying. In the flames, she spots a giant creature formed of magma and rock roaring up at her. Meanwhile, the Doctor looks for Caecilius’ villa while Donna asks him about the best way to earn everybody to evacuate the town before the eruption. The Doctor tells her they can’t, citing the fact that the destruction of Pompeii is a fixed point in history. When Donna argues with him, threatening to warn them regardless, he warns her that announcing the end of the world would just make her look mad. As they head in the direction of Caecilius’ villa, the soothsayer of the sisterhood contacts the others and warns them of what she’d heard. In the temple, Sister Thalina draws out the scroll prophesying the coming of the Doctor and the destruction that his arrival heralds. The High Priestess sees the travellers as a threat to the prosperous future she had seen for Pompeii and decrees that they must be eliminated. Another earthquake shakes the town and the Doctor and Donna earn favour with Caecilius for saving one of his possessions. Posing as siblings from Rome, Donna, to the Doctor’s annoyance, keeps trying to coax Caecilius and his family to leave Pompeii before the eruption. As they keep arguing to themselves while paying respect to their household Gods, Lucius Petrus Dextrus arrives at the villa and Caecilius greets him. As the Doctor and Donna make their leave, Caecilius unveils an artifact he’d had his stonemasons create for Dextrus, a square segment of circuitry carved out of stone. While the Doctor explains Dextrus' role in the city, Evelina comes in and uses her power of prophecy to reveal their real identities, to their shock. To their further astonishment, Dextrus is also aware of the Doctor's Gallifreyan origin and Donna's being from the future. Suddenly, Evelina falls unconscious. While she rests, Metella sits with her while showing Donna the side effect of her power; her arm is slowly turning to stone. Caecilius shows the Doctor the hypocaust and he hears the creature roaring below himself. He also expects that the power of prophecy started to manifest in all the soothsayers in the city after an earthquake 17 years ago. Afterward, the Doctor goes to Caecilius' son Quintus and asks him to take him to Dextrus' residence. The pair of them sneak out and break into Dextrus' villa, discovering a completed circuit board created from six, marble carvings; they fail to notice Dextrus arrival until he interrupts them. Back at Caecilius' villa, Donna speaks with Evelina and warns her of the eruption of Vesuvius the following morning. Everything she says is heard by the rest of the Sisterhood and the High Priestess orders Donna to be killed. Meanwhile, the Doctor tries to get Dextrus to reveal who really designed the carvings but Dextrus has him sentenced to death for insulting the Gods. He requests shaking Dextrus' hand as a last wish before grabbing it anyway and pulling his arm off; Dextrus draws back his tunic to reveal his entire arm had turned to stone. Throwing the arm back to him, the Doctor and Quintus flee, knocking over the carvings on their way out but not damaging them. As they run back to Caecilius' villa, Dextrus warns his masters that the Doctor poses a threat to the rise of Pompeii and sends them after him. They arrive back at the villa just as a giant creature formed of magma and rock breaks through the hypocaust and incinerates one of Ceacilius' household staff. The Doctor tries to reason with the creature and, while Donna collects water, she is captured by the Sisterhood. At the creature moves to kill the Doctor, Quintus thrusts water on it and extinguishes it as it crumbles into rock fragments on the floor. Supposing that it was a good thing they stayed if there were aliens at works in Pompeii, the Doctor notices Donna is missing. In the Temple of Sybil, Donna is tied up for sacrifice at the hands of Sister Spurrina for false prophecy; before she strikes, however, the Doctor appears and releases her. The High Priestess is impressed by the Doctor's insight and allows him an audience upon her, to reveal that her power has rendered her entire body completely stone. Donna examines the other Sisters and finds that they are too also turning to stone as an aftereffect of breathing in Vesuvius. Addressing the creature that is transforming her, the Doctor demands to know what they are and how the soothsayers are able to see into the future. The High Priestess names them as Pyroviles and the Doctor arms himself with a water pistol, learning that the Pyroviles were rendered dust upon arriving on Earth thousands of years earlier to be woken up by the Earthquake 17 years ago and have since been reconstituting themselves in human bodies. Before he can learn more, however, Spurrina reads his mind and discovers his weapon is harmless. Spraying the High Priestess as a distraction, the Doctor and Donna slip down a grate and head into the volcano. Meanwhile, Evelina starts seeing a future in which someone has to make a terrible choice that will discern the future of Pompeii. In the volcano, the Doctor explains why he can't save Pompeii on account of it's being a fixed point in time, but Donna is still put out that he won't even try to prevent it, particularly when he tells her that twenty-thousand people are fated to die. Outside, Dextrus and his underlings bring the Pyroviles' circuitry to the volcano mouth and are greeted by an adult Pyrovile. The Doctor and Donna arrive in the main chamber of the volcano where they are spotted by Dextrus after his cohorts finish installing the stone carvings into a pod at the centre of the chamber. He alerts the Pyroviles to their presence and they make for the pod, sealing themselves inside after Dextrus tells them that the Pyroviles will create a new empire on Earth after their own planet Pyrovillia was lost. The Doctor examines the circuit and discovers that Vesuvius can't erupt because the Pyroviles are leeching it's power for use in their plan to convert the world into more Pyroviles, hence why the Soothsayers can't see it. He then mournfully tells Donna that he can invert the system and reverse it's effects, making the volcano erupt but that leaves him with an ultimatum; sacrifice Pompeii or let the world be conquered. Resetting the system, the Doctor hesitates to press the lever so Donna does it with him and the system is inverted. Vesuvius starts erupting, taking Dextrus and all the Pyroviles with it. As the Doctor and Donna are lauched out of the volcano in the pod, the sky is consumed with dark smoke and ash and the population starts running in a panic. Making their way back to the TARDIS, Donna tries to direct the people to safety but nobody listens in their panic. They make it back to the villa to see Caecilius and his family cowering in the corner; to Donna's horror, the Doctor just hurries himself into the TARDIS and Donna follows as he takes off, leaving them to their fates. Inside the TARDIS, Donna demands that he go back for them, but the Doctor tells her that he simply cannot change history, just like he can't go back and prevent the destruction of Gallifrey for as much as he may want to. At a sobbing Donna's request that he "just save someone", though, the Doctor lands back in the villa and brings Caecilius and his family aboard, taking them to safety outside of town as it's consumed by smoke and buried in ash. The Doctor promises Caecilius that Pompeii will never be forgotten and one day, thousands of years later, will be found again. As the family comforts each other, with Evelina safe from the power of prophecy that was lost when the volcano erupted, the Doctor and Donna retreat into the TARDIS where he thanks her for helping him make the better choice and the take-off. Six months later, Caecilius and his family have started their new lives in Rome, safe and sound with Quintus training to be a doctor. Before he heads out, he says his thanks to their new household Gods, the Doctor and Donna. Cast * The Doctor - David Tennant * Donna Noble - Catherine Tate * Stallholder - Phil Cornwell * Soothsayer - Karen Gillan * Spurrina - Sasha Behar * Thalina - Lorraine Burroughs * Caecilius - Peter Capaldi * Metella - Tracey Childs * Evelina - Francesca Fowler * Quintus - Francois Pandolfo * High Priestess - Victoria Wicks * Major Domo - Gerard Bell * Lucius - Phil Davis Crew To be added References To be added Story Notes To be added Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''The Fires of Pompeii'' page on '''Doctor Who Website